Who is this mysterious seventh Person with the inkhorn, clothed with the linen garments of the High Priest? It's none other than the Lord of glory. He sighs over the abominations of the people whom He has redeemed by His precious blood. He sighs over their barren spiritual condition.

He sighs because He can't deny His holiness and shut His eyes to their sins. "Son of man, these men have set their idols in their heart and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them? (Ezekiel 14:3) " God can't answer their prayers; they are an abomination unto Him. The mighty arm of Jehovah is paralyzed in the midst of such awful conditions (Isaiah 59:1-2).

We're living in a day when iniquity abounds and "the love of many shall wax cold." Compromise and callousness are among the crying evils of the present age. The Son of God is looking for Gethsemene companions. Does He find one in you? As He has gone through your assembly, how many has He marked? Has He marked your forehead with His sacred sign of fellowship and identification? Does He find you among the godly remnant in these last dark days of a dying dispensation of grace, sighing for the abominations and sins of the Church? Are you among the believers to whom God has become a "little sanctuary? (Ezekiel 11:16)"

The "marked" ones are those who have claimed their "magna carta" of liberty from Romans 8 and have a heart free to enter into fellowship with Christ for others. Alas! Many Christians have to spend their time sighing and crying over their own sins and failures, so they have no power to exercise the authority of their priestly function for others.

True intercession is the costliest of all Christian service. It's no mere lip service. It's the heart-agony of the Father expressed through us by the Holy Spirit, as He makes intercession through us (Romans 8:26). WE never really pray until our hearts and minds become the praying-ground of the Spirit.

What does this mark involve? In Ezekiel's case this mark meant intercession of the highest order - fullest identification with the sufferings of God for His backslidden people, identifying Himself with the people in their idolatry.

In the plans and purposes of God, we're to be the instruments of the Spirit's intercession. When we seek the gifts and graces of this high and holy ministry and allow our great High Priest and Savior Jesus Christ to put His secret sign upon our forehead, we bear the burden in true identification for the condition of the Church and the world.

The moment we give ourselves to the Lord to be marked with the secret sign, that moment we must lay all on the altar of sacrifice and ourselves become "living" sacrifices (Romans 12:1).

It's imperative for God's ministers and people to recognize that revival begins when the abominations are cleansed from within the inner temple of God, in the hearts of His saints. Revival is not a matter of believers going down the street beating big drums, but of saints, with broken hearts, sobbing their way to Calvary. Revival isn't so much the drunkard being saved as God's people being delivered from their abominations.

This is copyrighted material from James Stewart's book Come O Breath, available from Revival Literature, PO Box 6068, Asheville, NC 28816.